


How to make friends, enthusiastically

by awkwardsorta



Category: Football RPF
Genre: EPL, Fanboying, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2012-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 09:41:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardsorta/pseuds/awkwardsorta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sergio Aguero moves to England, finds Scott Parker inexplicably charming. Adam and David are just tagging along. I DON'T KNOW. Is this any more ridiculous than Kaka/David James?!</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to make friends, enthusiastically

Sergio and David were sitting on the plane on their way down to Wales, a place that Sergio, if he was honest, was not sure about. Was it a city? A state? Sergio couldn’t tell. He was reading someone’s dog-eared copy of _FourFourTwo_ that had been passed back down the cabin. His English wasn’t good enough to read the full articles, but he could get the gist and the captions. Sergio had put a lot of time into learning about the Premier League over the summer but his focus had been City: their players, their history, their recent seasons. He had worked his way through their supposed rivals: United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool. Now he was trying to catch up on the rest.

"Who is Scott Parker?"

David glanced down at the magazine and shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Someone in the league. Ask Adam."

So Sergio did.

“Hi Adam,” he said, swinging into the seat across the aisle from where Adam sat chatting with Joe.

“I have a question, and David say to ask Adam.”

Adam looked a bit surprised. “Yeah of course, what is it?”

Sergio held out the magazine. “Who is Scott Parker? They talk a lot, Scott Parker, Scott Parker, he is very good. I do not know the Scott Parker.”

Adam laughed and took the magazine to get a better look at the picture. "Scotty P! He’s a good lad.”

Joe leaned around Adam and said solemnly to Sergio, “Great hair.”

“Great hair?”

“Yeah like proper old school.”

Sergio gave him a confused smile. “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

“What do you want to know?”

Sergio turned to Adam. “Oh, is he good, as they say? Do we scare of him?”

“Are we scared of him,” Adam corrected absent-mindedly, reading the article. “Yeah yeah, he’s really good. Plays for West Ham?”

“West Ham in the Championship?”

“Yeah that’s right. He won’t stay there though. He’ll go to a North London club.”

“Great hair,” Joe said again, nodding approvingly. Sergio laughed. “Okay, thank you. I am going to watch Scott Parker.”

\---

A week later, they were on the bus to Bolton. Sergio had a vague idea that this was nearby, and that the accents were a lot more similar to Manchester than they were last week in Wales. He had worked out after a confusing conversation with Gareth that Wales was a country. There was something more about politics but that had gone far beyond Sergio’s English capabilities.

Sergio was listening to Adam’s ipod. “Here,” Adam had said earlier, “This will help you learn our football.” And he had scrolled through to some sports show with episodes dating back to 2008.

Sergio was barely keeping up; they talked too fast and on top of each other and their accents were incomprehensible. But every so often they would answer in short bursts, and he would pick up the thread again.

It was one of these moments when he turned around, peered between the seats to where Adam and David were giggling and whispering together - they did this a lot - and said, excitedly, “They talk about Scott Parker!”

Adam laughed. “Oh yeah? What are they saying?”

“They say -” Sergio stopped himself. “They are saying,” he tried, and Adam gave an approving smile, “They are thinking he is handsome.”

He stopped and rewound, listened again and then grinned at David. “They are thinking you are also.”

Adam laughed. “He’s a handsome chap, Scotty P.”

David squinted at both of them.

“Great hair,” Adam said, and David scowled. “It is not great hair,” he said, and Sergio said, “Yes, and Joe and this person say also of great hair.”

David carried on staring at Adam accusingly. “You do not like his hair, Adam.”

“Yeah I do, it’s brilliant.”

There was a long silence. Sergio looked back and forth between them and the radio show carried on in his ears. He heard ‘Mancini’ in the midst but that was about it.

“Your hair’s better,” Adam said eventually. David went a bit red. “That is not-” he said, and then finished his sentence in muttered Spanish and looked out the window.

Sergio thought it best not to translate.

\---

Sergio scored a hattrick and then went home to watch the rest of the weekend’s football, including Scott Parker’s debut for Tottenham.

Sergio didn’t know if he quite agreed with Adam and Joe that Scott Parker’s hair was really that great. It was kind of weird if he was honest. Overly floppy. But then again, Sergio didn’t know what constituted ‘great hair’ in England. All his teammates had pretty boring hair, or no hair at all.

As for his game, well. Scott Parker ran really strangely. His centre of gravity was a foot lower than everyone else on the pitch. His legs went at all angles as he ducked past the other team and not once did he look anything less than one hundred percent concentrated.

Sergio was enthralled.

He looked him up online, watched Scott play in claret and blue, watched him when he was so young but his hair was still thirty years old. He looked at his stats, and translated an interview from the previous season. He lost track of time and missed the first three times Giannina called him for supper.

\---

They thrashed Blackburn four nil but Sergio took no part in it. He wasn’t too upset. It was early yet, and watching the others play the second half with such flair put him in a good mood. Sergio went round the dressing room after the game. “Who of you does nothing tomorrow?” he said. “Who will go to London with me?”

“Is that a good idea?” Adam asked him, eyeing Sergio’s groin dubiously.

Sergio waved him off. “Is a strain.” He carried on around the room.

But no one replied. Sergio would not be put off. “Adam,” he said, “David, you two?”

“Mate,” Adam said, “I wouldn’t have a clue what to do in London. Can’t we just go to Blackpool?”

“Or the delights of Middlesborough,” said David, giving Adam a teasing smile. He ducked away when Adam grabbed for him, laughing. “Pipe down,” Adam said. “I’ll give you delights...”

Sergio didn’t know what was going on, but it hadn’t been an out-and-out no.

“There is a match,” he pointed out hopefully. “The North London derby?”

Adam brightened considerably. “Oh yeah! Actually, that might be cool.”

He looked at David, who hadn’t been listening, and again as he spoke to David his accent started thickening and his speech quickened. Sergio waited patiently. It was promising, considering that according to David he had known fair little English, as little as Sergio, when he had first arrived in England. Now look at him.

David shrugged. “Okay,” he said.

Adam smiled at Sergio. “I’ll sort tickets.”

\---

They drove down the three of them and Sergio spent most of the time hanging over David’s shoulder where he sat in the front seat, reading Adam’s AA Road Atlas. The country started to make a lot more sense like that. Sergio liked it when they passed signs for ‘The South’, and when he pointed them out Adam scoffed.

“They’re all pansies down there,” he said, and then had to spend fifteen minutes explaining the word, the connotations, and the general antagonism across the unmarked border.

At the end of Adam’s protracted explanation, David thumbed through the map and said absentmindedly, “Joleon says that Birmingham, it is not north.”

“Look,” Adam said, “I’m just trying to give Sergio the general idea in the country okay? And that’s that everything above Watford Gap is ‘the North’. Let’s not get into discussions about the Midlands.”

David frowned and peered at the map. “Watford - what is it you said?”

“Watford Gap,” Adam said, going to tap the map and missing so that he ended up tapping David’s hand instead. David tangled their fingers together, briefly, and then Adam went to change gear. Sergio thought that sometimes they forgot that anyone else was there.

“Where is - gap? Like - a space?”

“Yeah, but it’s just a name. I dunno. It’s near Northampton, I think.”

David searched the index and found the page. After a few minutes of searching, Sergio pointed. “There,” he said. “Watford Gap.”

David squinted. The place was tiny. Then he turned over a few pages and found Birmingham. “So Birmingham is north,” he said, decisively, and Adam grinned. “Alright,” he said, “You tell Joleon that.”

\---

They got a little stick from the surrounding Spurs fans, but were generally left alone. Sergio’s favourites were those who leant over to tell them exactly what they thought Mancini should be doing with the squad. He couldn’t understand most of what they said, but their forthright and foul-mouthed certainty appealed to him.

It was a frenetic affair, tempers high and the football played fast and physical. Sergio loved it. Adam shouted encouragement for both teams, on his feet for Walker’s goal, and David watched with an intensity that made Sergio smile.

For his own part, Sergio kept a close eye on Scott Parker. He dominated his opponents, forcing Arteta further and further back, holding the back four to the midfield. This wasn’t the Spurs that Sergio had watched those first few weeks.

“He’s good? Scott Parker?”

It was rhetorical in a way: Sergio could tell he was good, he was one of the best there, but he wanted to hear what the other two had to say.

David nodded, giving Sergio the briefest of acknowledging glances before his eyes were back on the game. “Si,” he said, “Very good. He controls the midfield.”

“Exactly,” Sergio says, slipping briefly into Spanish. He gave Adam an apologetic smile, and carried on in English. “Yes, I see this.”

Adam laughed at both them. “Not too bad for an Englishman, is he? He might carry us to the Euros at this rate.”

David elbowed him not-too-discretely in the side. He muttered something in Spanish, that Sergio couldn’t hear over the roar of the crowd. Adam ducked his head closer to David’s. “What was that?” He said, and David shook his head, but after a moment Adam smiled at him like he knew what it had been. It was a pleased, sort of embarrassed smile.

Sergio settled back to watch out the last ten minutes.

\---

Adam texted Kyle after the game. “I’m telling him that you fancy his teammate,” Adam said, and David ducked his head, grinning.

“What?” Sergio said, “What are you-?”

“Don’t worry,” Adam said, glancing up from his phone. “We all get crushes.”

Sergio looked helpless. “What is -”

“You love him,” Adam supplied. “You want his babies.” He grinned like the joke was funny and David leant into his side, peering around Adam at Sergio.

Sergio frowned. “I don’t - que?”

“He’s all you talk about,” David said, slipping into Spanish. It was a teasing grin he gave Sergio and Sergio rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, because he’s a good footballer, not because I am in love with the guy.”

David laughed. “Adam,” he said, going back to English. “Sergio wants to meet Scott Parker.”

Adam laughed back. “Of course he does. We can arrange that.”

Sergio went to protest, then thought better of it.

“You want to?”

Adam looked like he actually meant it. Sergio didn’t have the words he wanted to qualify his answer, to sound less keen.

“Okay.”

\---

After the match, David disappeared to meet a friend, making plans to meet up with them later. He wasn’t bothered about talking to anyone after the game; he was never interested in players off the pitch. Sergio, on the other hand, got a great deal of pleasure from it. He didn’t understand how he could possibly feel at home unless he was making friends. He was hanging out with De Gea in pre-season and Adam had to tell him off, tell him that was definitely out of bounds. Sergio was pretty sure he was joking, since Adam went off to play golf with Rooney and Joe the next day, but he made the decision to just not tell Adam in the future.

Adam took him around the back and they went for a drink in one of the more private bars. Kyle came up after a while, shook hands with Sergio and nodded his thanks at Sergio’s congratulations.

He and Adam meandered through an analysis of that weekend’s football, the national team, and what was happening in the Championship, and occasionally Sergio smiled and nodded, but mostly he just let their conversation wash over him.

A few others came up; Aaron said hello and then Scott Parker walked into the room, and afterwards, later, when they were driving home, Adam turned to David and laughed so much that David told him to watch the road, and he told David, “Kun’s face lit up, he was so happy.”

It was maybe true. Sergio did find himself smiling wide, wider than usual, and Scott nodded somewhat nervously at him.

“Alright Scott,” Adam said, reaching out a hand. “How’s it going?”

Scott took his hand, exchanged pleasantries, and glanced over at Sergio again. Sergio smiled, a little more reserved this time. “Oh,” Adam said, over-the-top casual. “This is Sergio. Sergio, Scott.”

“You were great,” Sergio enthuses. “Great. Great match.”

Scott nodded again. Sergio made a note of it. He should probably be nodding instead of talking, doing a careful, brief upward nod instead of smiling.

“Thanks,” Scott said, and Sergio turned to Adam, who sat there with a slight smirk on his face. He was no good, Sergio thought. He turned back to Scott, who was looking at Kyle. The whole thing felt slightly awkward.

“Well,” Scott said.

“Yeah,” Adam said.

“So what are you guys doing here?”

“Oh,” said Adam, “Kun here wanted to watch -” he broke off.

“Uh,” he said. “A derby, you know. See the finer points of football in London.”

Sergio smiled.

“Oh right,” said Scott. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Ah,” Sergio said, and looked to Adam. “Yeah,” Adam said, “It’s interesting to see some lesser football eh Kun?”

“No no,” Sergio said, as Adam laughed and Kyle rolled his eyes. “No, it’s good football.”

Scott grinned at him, brief but definitely there, and Sergio forgot all about nodding and just smiled back at him. Adam kicked his ankle, and Kyle finished his drink.

“I’ve got to run,” Scott said, “got my family in the car downstairs.”

“Yeah we’d best be off too,” Adam said, slipping off his stool and picking up his jacket from where it had fallen on the floor. Sergio picked up his wallet too, fallen out of a pocket, and handed it to Adam.

Everyone sort of gravitated towards the door and Scott said, “Nice to see you, Adam. Sergio - nice to meet you.”

“Yes,” Sergio said, and smiled at him again because what did it matter anyway, he had already smiled more than was appropriate in a conversation with three reticent English men. “Pleased to meet you also.”

\---

They ribbed him for a few days and then they tired of it, found a new person to laugh at. Carlos was always good for teasing anyhow. Sergio took it good naturedly and enjoyed the feeling of camaraderie.

David remembered each time Spurs played though and he mentioned it more often than not to Sergio in the dressing room the next day. “Saw your boy yesterday,” he said. “Been watching your man on Match of the Day.”

And then of course Adam leant across to join in the conversation, gave his analysis of the match or just asked Sergio if he missed his boyfriend. It all depended on how annoying he was feeling.

Joe wandered past one day, stopped beside them and said, “Why are you always talking about Scott Parker?”

Sergio looked to the others and David just gave a small smile that showed his dimples. Adam looked over at Sergio and Joe shrugged. “Whatever,” he said. “You three are weird.”

But Adam must have told him later because when the next England friendly came up, Joe looked over to Sergio and laughed. He muttered something to Adam, who laughed too, and Sergio felt the sinking feeling that only came when he saw the two of them together. He waved a hand at them, resigned.

\---

Adam, Joe and Joleon went away to play the friendly, and David too, and Sergio knew what to expect but he watched the match and then he watched the highlights too, and he wished he could understand the analysis. When they were all back in Manchester he asked David to translate some of it.

“But they really like him,” he said, surprised. David shrugged.

“Do they say as much about the others on the team?”

“No,” David shook his head. “They’re quite nice about Hart.”

“Not Adam?” Sergio said, feeling like he should be gentle around this subject. David had mentioned this before, about Adam feeling frustrated with his position in both teams, but the conversation had been brief and Sergio had felt it wasn’t his place to offer opinion. He was offended on Adam’s behalf, sure. He saw Adam in training, he experienced Adam’s grace of play on the pitch - but - Scott Parker. He stood out.

David shrugged, again.

Later, out in training, David sat in the grass with his arm pressed against Adam’s, and when Mancini yelled across the pitch again at Adam, David crowded into his space for a moment, put a hand to Adam’s chest and then was off again. Adam looked up and caught Sergio watching. Sergio smiled.

\---

Adam told Sergio he wasn’t going to be his messenger boy, and he could jolly well tell Scott Parker himself if he thought he was that great. David shrugged at Sergio and made a face. “Sorry,” he said, and left the changing room after Adam.

Adam texted Sergio later. “Here’s his number. If you get arrested for stalking I didn’t give it you.”

\---

“Did you text your boyfriend then?” Sergio was at Adam’s house, eating dinner with him and David. This phrasing had been used at Sergio so many times now that he knew it off by heart. If someone asked him to say something in English, he’d probably come out with, “Your boyfriend did well on Saturday.” Not the most adaptable of phrases. He could probably best use it on Adam himself.

“I have texted Scott,” he said, a slight question in his voice to check his understanding.

Adam grinned and David rolled his eyes a little. “What did you say?”

“I say: he is good in the friendly. And also: hello it is Sergio. You know.”

Adam laughed, tipping his head back against the back of the sofa. David leant away from him a little, leaning an elbow on the cushions. “He’ll find that weird you know.”

“I figured.” He did, and it wasn’t even all about the cultural difference. Sergio had been told time and again that he was very (too) open. It had got him a beautiful wife and baby and a pretty great career though, so he couldn’t be doing everything wrong. He raised both hands, palms up. “What can you do,” he said. “I wanted to tell him, so I did.”

David made a face like he can’t think of an argument with that, and Adam sighed. He had laughed through their exchange and didn’t bother to pull them up on the Spanish.

“He has replied?”

Sergio shook his head at David and pulled at a loose thread on the cushion next to him. “No,” he said. “It’s okay. I text him today.”

Adam sighed again, like this was all too much. David gave him a look, and Adam matched it. Sergio felt a little like a third wheel.

\---

Scott did reply, later that night. It was typically awkward and it made Sergio smile.

‘Cheers mate,’ it said. ‘See you around.’

If Scott found it strange that Sergio had his number, let alone felt the need to text him, he didn’t show it.

“He’s so gracious,” Sergio said to Giannina after he showed it to her. “Isn’t he? That’s so gracious.”

\---

So he carried on. At first he would just text him on the weekends to say something about the game, and usually Scott would return the compliment. Sergio picked up ‘cheers’ and tried using it in the dressing room. No one said anything, so he kept it. “Cheers mate,” he said in a post-match interview, and it felt good. He couldn’t master the up-nod though so he still smiled a lot.

He talked to the kids’ football magazines and they asked him to name the best player he had played against, and for a moment Scott’s name was on the tip of his tongue before he realised he had never played against him.

“Who’d’ve thought it,” Adam said when he read the piece. “When you came to Manchester. When’s the wedding?”

Next to him, David smiled to himself. Adam grinned at Sergio for a while in answer to his questioning look, and then repeated himself. “The wedding,” he said. “When are you two getting married?”

“Ah, no,” Sergio said. “Because we play Spurs and we win. Then-” he searched for the words and Adam started laughing prematurely. “Then the wedding, is bad no?”

Sergio shrugged and laughed with Adam. “I think is good, the wedding is after. When he is happy again.”

“When he’s forgotten we thrashed his team six nil?”

“Yes, yes.” Sergio didn’t quite know what Adam said, but he thought it was about right.

“Anyway,” Sergio said, grinning slyly at Adam, “When is your wedding?”

Adam shoved him and Sergio laughed.

\---

It wasn’t six nil, but it wasn’t a happy affair. When Mario stepped on Scott, Sergio hovered nearby, anxious but unsure of what was going on. He tried to speak to Scott, afterwards, but he was gone before Sergio could even search the departing players.

He texted him that evening, with each non reply his attempts, varyingly serious, spread out until he sent the last one, despondent and out of sorts, at one in the morning.

‘Hi good game hope your okay’

‘watching come dine with me this is so funny’

‘you and me will be great on come dine with me!’

‘Going to bed hope your okay’

There was still no reply the next morning. Sergio tried again with, ‘Hi I hope you are okay, that you are not dying in hospital’, but the fact of the matter was that he felt guilty, and anxious, because it was his teammate and therefore a little bit his responsibility.

‘Sure Mario does not mean to hurt, by the way,’ he tried at lunchtime, and when there was no answer still, ‘okay. please call me sometime okay’.

Every one of the seven messages sat there looking lonely in his message history, and Sergio hid his phone.

\---

One of the highlights of his season off the pitch happened on an unassuming Tuesday morning not long after that. Sergio was in the car on the way to training, singing along to the radio, making up words, and his phone went off.

He forgot to check it until he went to put it in his locker - first rule of the changing room: never leave your phone unattended - so his reaction did not go unobserved.

“What are you so happy about?” David said, tying his boots and watching Sergio.

Sergio didn’t reply. He had been busy, he realised, intense training for the upcoming game in Europe, and his son had been ill. He counted back and realised it was three days since he had texted Scott. And yet here it was, in his inbox, totally unsolicited: ‘Hi. How are you?’

Sergio was smiling so much his cheeks hurt. He turned to David and pinched his cheek. “It’s a good day,” he said, as David ducked away.

\---

Another international period came around. After the game they watched the highlights of the England match at Sergio’s insistence. There was some interest, especially from his teammates in the Premier League. Sergio was enthralled by Scott’s performance and his newfound leading role.

His teammates didn’t know who Scott was. Sergio was faintly appalled. “He’s Scott Parker,” he said, in the same way he’d have said, “He’s _Bobby Moore_.”

“He left West Ham,” he said, “to play for Spurs, they’re going to be in Europe next year pretty much because of him.”

There was a long silence. Then Leo perked up, looking keenly at the screen.

"Wait, I recognise him."

Sergio perked up. “Really?"

Leo leaned back from the screen and his face cleared. "Oh no, sorry. I’m thinking of a this actor in this silent film I watched the other day."

“Oh okay.”

Leo carried on telling Sergio about the film, and Sergio took out his phone to text Scott and tell him what a great captain job he had done.

‘GREAT GAME’ he sent, but that wasn’t enough so in quick succession he sent:

‘Unlucky for England not to win’ and

‘Everyone agree Scott Parker for England captain!’

This one was a white lie, since almost nobody on his team actually knew who Scott was, but when he brought it up they said, “Sure Kun.”

“Not Stevie?” Maxi said. Sergio frowned, and Maxi laughed. “Okay,” he said. “Scott Parker, sure.”

“Don't your teammates play for England?” said Eze. “What about them?”

Sergio sighed. “Oh okay,” Eze said, hurriedly. “Nevermind. Who wants to get a drink with me?”

Scott texted back. Just, ‘cheers’. Sergio couldn’t stop smiling.

He got another text later, ‘when are you back in england?’

‘Tomorrow!’ Sergio replied, trying to rein in his enthusiasm and respond as Scott would like.

He thought about Manchester, the dirty grey streets and the low cloud, and about his team and how Adam would be in a mood about the Holland game and David would sit close to him all day to make up for it. He thought about watching Sky Sports and waiting for updates from other matches, about scrolling news in the background and turning the volume up when Spurs were up for discussion. He thought about how welcoming all of it was to him, and he said to Scott the only thing he could say.

‘Happy to be back in England :)’

\---  



End file.
